On the Inside

Had I known how interesting the cardiac CT scan would be, my previous blog about being scared would have been a lot longer.

After a couple of IV pokes for labs, (I have tiny veins that make even the most skilled phlebotemists cringe), I was sent to a waiting room and instructed to change into a gown, and then make myself comfortable in any chair next to other people crossing their fingers that the ties in the back would protect modesty. I then sat down with a nurse who explained the process for the scan. Um, process for the scan? It quickly became clear that this was not an in-and-out thing. The tricky thing about cardiac CTs is that your heart doesn't stay still, which is a problem for the pictures they're trying to take. So your heart needs to be slowed to at least 50 beats per minute, to capture moments between beats. This is more of an involved process for me, as my pacemaker has settings that doesn't allow my heart to beat below 60 (or above 150). So a tech came by to change the settings. (In the case that some of you might not have pacemakers, I'll add that this is very simple and painless- they place what looks like an oversized computer mouse over the skin where the pacemaker is, type some things into the computer, and voilah! It's re-programmed.) Step 2 involved taking a type of medication called a BetaBlocker, which helped slow my heart rate. Step 3 involved starting an IV.

It was at this point that I was playfully labled "the problem child" of the day. They tried to get an IV in, and tried, and tried. Each of their 3 attempts took about 5 minutes of what we in the medical profession call "fishing for veins." Use your imagination. They didn't catch any. And may I, for sympathy's sake, add in that the size of the needle had to be 18 guage- the biggest of them all- in order to accomodate for the medication they would be pushing in. Now with five tiny battle wounds, the nurses called an IV specialst, who wheeled in a doppler (like an ultrasound) to find my veins. Bingo. And nearly an hour and a half after attempt #1, I had an IV.

Step 4: I'm finally on the table for the scan, hooked up to a heart monitor. My heart rate, I'm sad to say, is too fast at 60. They gave me more BetaBlockers. And then some more. And then some more. Finally at 50, I was given Nitroglycerine, which is that stuff that dissolves under the tongue to treat a heart attack and chest pain. This dilates the vessels so that the pictures are like in high-def. The nurse had told me that "some patients" get a really bad headache. "But not all," she assured me. "Just some. I'm prepping you just in case."

And thank goodness she did, because the second that sucker dissolved, I felt like an axe had just landed in the middle of my head. Anyone watch "House"? If you have, you know that every patient that enters the CT scan has something freaky happen. It's like a bad horror flick where you can see the terror coming from miles away. "No! Don't lay down! Run out of that room!," Michael and I shout at the TV. And sure enough, when the actor-patients decide not to listen to us the viewers, their heads split open, their skin catches on fire, or they hallucinate that a million fire ants are eating their feet off. The first thought in my horrendously-painful head was, "the writers of "House" had to have had a cardiac CT. They are so right on."

Because then, oh then my friends, came the contrast. Many of you may have had this. It's another tool that they use to make the pictures bolder, to outline the vessels more clearly. It's iodine, and while that sounds innocent, it makes you feel like hot water is being poured from your brain into every molecule in your body. It also makes you feel like you wet your pants, which fortunately, my good nurses also warned me about. "Thanks for that," I said, looking down at my white pants. They were right, you really don't pee yourself, which was good, because I didn't bring an extra outfit.

The combination of my heart beating at an unfamiliar rate, the contrast, the nitro and subsequent headeache, and multiple doses of beta blockers- oh, and holding my breath for the pictures as your chest can't be moving, either (kind of sounds like they bring you close to death, doesn't it?)- it all built up to make me feel like I was fainting, and I'm sure at one point I was pretty close. I began to cry like a 4-year-old, because it scared the crap out of me, and I was slipping out of lucidity just enough that I couldn't find the words for a while to describe what was happening. It passed in a minute or two, and I wiped the mascara off my cheeks, feeling like a dork. A dork, though, who didn't wet her pants, so that's something.

Four hours after I walked into the clinic, I walked the 5-minute stroll back to work, which turned into 15 minutes because I felt like I had just completed a triathalon and had to sit down three times out of exhaustion. I've never been so glad to get back to work.

Or to get home, for that matter. At the end of the day, my headache was over and so was the drama. And as always, Oliver made it all better.

We'll get the results of my CT scan in a week or two, but I'm pretty sure I already know what's on the inside of my heart.